Each year on Match Day, thousands of medical school students and graduates discover where they will receive their specialty training. The matching process, overseen by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), is determined by an algorithm that pairs eligible applicants with available residency training positions. With a record 50,413 applicants for 41,503 PGY-1 and PGY-2…
What to Expect During Medical School
You’re about to embark on four years of learning, working, socializing, and then learning and working some more. The best way to prepare for the long road ahead is to know what to expect. This post will walk you through the various avenues of medical school education, from reviewing what and how you’ll learn to…
The Best Medical School Letter of Recommendation Advice for 2024
Based on the hundreds of letters of recommendation we’ve read, we’ve identified five key elements that make a recommendation stand out from the rest and help the applicant shine. If you’re writing a recommendation for someone, or you’re drafting your own recommendation for your recommender to edit, these elements will help you structure your letter…
New York University Grossman Medical School Secondary Application Essay Tips [2023-2024]
Located in the bustling heart of lower Manhattan, the New York University (NYU) Grossman School of Medicine is known for its strengths in patient care, medical education, and scientific research. The program is consistently ranked highly by physicians and researchers. In the 2023-2024 U.S. News & World Report ranking, it tied at #10 for research…
The AAMC’s PREview: Everything You Need to Know
The PREview exam is a type of situational judgment test designed to help admissions committees assess applicants’ pre-professional competencies. Unlike quantitative measures, such as the MCAT and one’s GPA, the PREview exam attempts to evaluate the qualitative, or “soft,” skills believed to be just as important for future physicians. Thus, used in conjunction with other…
University of Washington School of Medicine Secondary Application Tips and Deadlines [2023-2024]
Given that the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) is ranked number-one in primary care by U.S. News & World Report, it looks for applicants who have a strong interest in patient education and community health. It is also committed to serving the needs of the citizens of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho…
The Casper Exam: A Situational Judgement Test
GPAs. MCATs. CARS. AACOMAS. AMCAS. PREview. The abbreviations and acronyms you need to wade through on your journey to medical school can seem endless. Here’s another one: the Computer-based Assessment for Sampling Personal Characteristics – Casper for short. This situational judgment test (SJT) is designed to assess core competencies related to social intelligence and professionalism,…
Med School Applications Kick Off: Ten Tips to Get You Through the Season
Getting ready to apply to medical school? This can be a hectic time as you try to stay on top of everything. Here are ten tips to help you hit the ground running: 1. Get cozy with AMCAS/AACOMAS. These two services – the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) and the American Association of Colleges…
Should You Consider a Caribbean Medical School?
If the application season isn’t going as you’d hoped, your thoughts might be turning to alternative ways of advancing your medical education. Perhaps you’re thinking about retaking the MCAT, boosting your GPA with postbaccalaureate coursework, or spending a year in a clinical or research environment. Or you might be thinking about warm tropical breezes and…
A Strategic Guide for Applying to Medical School
When premed students contact us about guiding them through the medical school application process, many of their questions are related to timing. “When should I …?” is a frequent question starter. Although no one single answer applies to everyone, here are the guidelines we use when advising our medical school clients. When should I apply…
The Nine Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make on a Medical School Waitlist
“How bad is it, Doc?” Well, clients don’t quite ask me that. But, as they clutch their waitlist notification, they’re clearly feeling immense tension and anxiety, as though life itself hangs in the balance. Waitlisted applicants begin to wonder, “What does it all mean? What should I do? And when, oh when, will it end?”…
How to Defer a Medical School Acceptance
There’s a lot of misinformation out there about deferrals, so let’s review the facts. How medical school deferment works After you have received an acceptance to a medical school, you might be able to defer your scheduled start date by a year. In the best case scenario, you will be granted the deferral; in the…
When Will Medical Schools Give You an Answer?
Sadly, the frustrating fact is that there’s no rule governing how much time a medical school has to respond to your application. However, we’ll try to answer some of the big questions on med school applicants’ minds, including: I submitted my primary but haven’t received a secondary yet. Many schools send out secondaries as soon as…
What’s the Best Way to Prep for Your Residency Interview?
Your residency interview is your chance to show your target programs that you’ve got what it takes to join their team. Everything in your application, including your medical student performance evaluation (MSPE) and evaluations, is fair game for interviewers. These are some of the most common questions you’ll hear: You’re also likely to be asked…
M3 Journaling: How It Can Help Your Residency Application
As you begin your third year of medical school, what are you doing to prepare for the residency match? Chances are, you’re up to your eyeballs in rotations and exams and everything else that goes into the third year of your medical degree. Chances are, you’re not really thinking much about your personal statement or…
Practicing for Your Med School Interview
Most applicants come away from their first med school interview saying, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” As with many things in life, the anticipation of a stressful event can sometimes be worse than the event itself. Although many med schools work hard to make interviewing applicants feel relaxed, this doesn’t…
The MMI: Everything You Need to Know
The Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) has become a very common med school interview format – one that is meant to provide a fairer, more comprehensive assessment of applicants. It began to grow in popularity after 2004, when Canada’s McMaster University published a study illustrating the flaws in the traditional interview format, especially in the ways…
All You Need to Know About Residency Applications and Matching
You’re busy juggling med school and life, and if you don’t stay organized, one of those balls is going to come crashing down. Let’s take a look at what you need to do so you can stay focused, motivated, and completely on top of your juggling act. What are the Components of a Residency Application?…
Make the Most of Your Experiences for ERAS
The 2024 ERAS (Electronic Residency Application Service) application has some big changes for residency and fellowship candidates. Some of the most significant are a limit on the number of experiences one can list, a new section for one’s most meaningful experiences, and a chance to explain “impactful experiences” that have affected one’s career path. This…
First Drafts of Residency Personal Statements: Let Yourself Go
For many residency applicants, writing the first draft of their personal statement is probably the most difficult part of the entire application process. And the most difficult part of writing that first draft is often getting the first few words on the page. Don’t fret – even accomplished novelists and famous journalists struggle to get…
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next Page »